


(everytime) i see you falling

by mayafriar



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Eddie centric, F/M, Heavy Angst, Its kind of weird, Loss, M/M, Sad Ending, bill blames himself for everything, they all miss stan a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 12:36:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13007916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayafriar/pseuds/mayafriar
Summary: Eddie would have thought he’d be afraid to die.orEddie dies, the Losers reflect, and Richie self destructs.





	(everytime) i see you falling

**Author's Note:**

> i'm getting the book for christmas, so bear with me for any overt canonical errors!! basically just a whole lot of the surviving losers club being sad and missing the boys :((
> 
> title is from the new order song bizarre love triangle, which is imo, reddie's song

Eddie doesn’t think a lot of things in those final moments - death isn’t quite as poignant as it is in fiction - but he does think about his friends. The thing he hates IT the most for isn’t the moments of torment, or the pain and trauma of the years gone by, or, god forbid, having his fucking arm ripped off. No, he hates IT the most for stripping him of his friends all these years.

 

He wonders about them all. He knows the snippets of their lives, he supposes the most important things. But he hadn’t been there to see them: Ben getting his first big commission, or Bev’s wedding day, or Bill launching his first book. He feels like shit thinking about everything he has missed, the time he has lost with the people that were once his best friends.

 

They still are, he guesses, even when he lays there dying in the fucking grey water it all started in. He doesn’t feel much about dying other than regret over losing his friends for so long. He thinks of Bill, who was so brave and strong even at thirteen. He was their leader, fearless and maybe a little foolish, but Eddie had looked up to him all the same.

 

Of Mike, who had taken so long to come out of his shell. He was quiet and steady, always so calm. Eddie was grateful to have known him. Bev, who taught him so much about life. It had been her who had introduced him to so many things. He thinks of Ben too, of afternoons spent in the library being tutored by him. He had always been so kind to Eddie, unfailingly caring.

 

Of course, he thinks of Richie too. His very best friend, the boy who had been there for him through thick and thin. He was a man now, but to Eddie he was still the same kid he was twenty seven years earlier. Well, he still made Eddie queasy when he smiled, still gave him those same heart palpitations he’d once feared. He still made Eddie nervous beyond words, all quips and suggestive looks and warm eyes.

 

He is there, they all are, blurring around him, and the noises are so _fucking loud_. There’s screaming and shouting, and his ears are ringing, and there is blood, so much blood. He thinks that maybe dying surrounded by these people makes it less sad, that he’s happy it will all have meant something. If he’s helped to take IT down, if he’s saved his friends, this has a purpose.

 

Stan is still missing, though. Stanley, who his memories of are so faded it makes him angry. Stan was almost an enigma to him now, only flashes of bird watching and tidiness and sarcasm. He was dying knowing he could barely remember one of his best friends, knowing that he killed himself rather than come back to the remains of their childhood.

 

At first, he had been angry at Stan for abandoning them, for not being brave enough to return. But he had thought about it more and more, about what Stan had been through. None of them knew what had happened that day in the sewers - what Stan had seen or felt. Eddie only knew he hadn’t really been the same since. He remembers the way he had screamed, the scars which had never truly healed. Stan had scrubbed at them and faded away into himself.

 

He misses him now, but at least he’s glad that if there is an afterlife, and he hopes there fucking is, that maybe Stan will be there to greet him. He’ll be serious and straight, but he’ll smile when he sees Eddie, and they’ll talk and it’ll be like nothing has changed. Maybe Stan is whole again now, and maybe Eddie will be too once it's all over. It’s the last bit of levity he has in these moments.

 

The losers are all around him, and he’s barely coherent. Richie’s got his hands pressed to where his arm used to be, and he seems so desperate. Eddie knows theres nothing that can be done, and so do the others. It doesn’t stop Richie. Nothing ever does. “Help me!” He’s angry, glaring at the others. “Fucking do something!”

 

Ben goes to his side, trying to staunch the blood with his sweater. Eddie doesn’t really feel anything anymore. He watches Richie, whose face has his blood smeared on it. It's scarlet, like the shade of his childhood bedroom, like the blood they'd washed from Bev's bathroom.

 

“Eds…” It’s haggard and horrible, but it’s also warm. It reminds him of being thirteen and feeling invincible with his friends by his side. It reminds him of bickering with Richie, of feeling like they would always be together: Eds and Richie against the world.

 

Eddie laughs a little. It tastes metallic. “Don’t call me Eds.”

 

Richie’s breathing sharply, barely a ghost of a smile on his face. He hopes that Richie will be okay, that he’ll cope once he’s gone, because in this moment, he’s worried for him. He wants to tell him the things he was never brave enough to.

 

He struggles, trying to lean up to Richie, his remaining arm reaching up towards him frailly. “You know I…”

 

He stops short, and with a gasp, its over.

 

 _Love you_.

 

-

 

Bill just stares at his body a few moments, his own feeling limp. IT couldn’t have just taken Stan, IT had to take Eddie too. Eddie, who, although neurotic, hadn’t hurt anyone. Bill had always felt the need to protect him, but he’d failed. Failed like he’d failed to protect Georgie and Stan.

 

Bill almost wished he’d died twenty seven fucking years earlier. They should’ve just let IT take him, tear him apart. It would've saved them all so much trouble, and god knows he deserves it for whats he’s done. It’s his fault they are all dead, and he knows it. He feels sick to his stomach, and he leans over, delicately shutting Eddies’s eyelids.

 

He gets to his feet, watching as Richie lingers on his knees, hovering over his best friend. In his head, all he hears is _your fault your fault your fault_. It’s a mantra, a painful rhythmic truth growing louder and louder. “R-Richie.”

 

“What.” It’s sharp and harsh and cutting, and in that moment Bill wants nothing more than to kill this thing or die trying. He did this, he brought them here, so he’ll finish it. For Stan, for Eddie. It’s a way of apologising to his friends for taking away the things they held close.

 

“T-this might be our l-last chance t-to get IT.” He nods in the direction the thing had gone in, lips pursed tightly.

 

Richie is still for a moment. He doesn’t turn. Bill feels sick.

 

_It should have been you._

 

“Let’s kill this son of a bitch once and for all.” The other man turns to face him, his eyes cold and his expression hard. In all the years Bill had known Richie Tozier, he had never seen him like this. It frightened him.

 

Richie stands up and is stalking after where the thing had gone, and Bill feels himself go cold. “Come here you fucker!” Richie’s voice is acid, and Bill watches the other man as he moves wildly. He is covered in blood, in Eddie’s blood.

 

Bill had once thought Richie was his best friend. After all, he was his right hand man - it was Richie who was always by his side, who fought with him in the Ritual. Now Bill had realised it had been Eddie, it always had been. Bill was nothing compared to Eddie.

 

Richie is yelling as he rounds the corner, and Bill just wants this all to end. “You fucking killed him, you disgusting piece of shit!”

 

He’s already launched himself onto IT, and he’s tearing and punching and screaming like an animal. Bill watches him for a moment before joining him. He channels all of his rage, all of his hatred into his limbs and he hits and he hits and he hits.

 

Years of anger, of pain and suffering, of guilt and sadness, have all led to this. There is liquid everywhere, all over them and IT, and all he can focus on are the guttural sounds from the man beside him, sounds that reflect the ache he can feel in his own heart.

 

His thoughts are consumed by those he has lost and those he could lose. Consumed by Stan, who he misses so fucking much. His curly hair, his dry humour, the days they had spent in the sun just being young and a little bit in love. Stan, who IT had taken from him again and again.

 

Stan, who he now struggles to remember clearly. Had his eyes been green or grey? Maybe it’s that that hurts the most.

 

He has to do this for his friends, for Audra, for Georgie, for failing to stop IT so long before. For being a coward, for being stupid, for getting his friends killed. Then Bill’s hands are inside the _thing,_ and running along it’s insides, savagery incarnate.

 

He pulls, ripping IT’s heart out like his own has been. IT’s body stops thrashing, and Richie turns to Bill as he smashes the organ between his hands like a scene in one of his horror books. It is visceral and horrible, a gruesome squelch that leaves pulp in his hair and on his clothes.

 

Bill wipes his face with his arm, calls to Ben. “Let’s g-get the fu-fuck out of here.”

 

Richie doesn’t say anything, just stares at the corpse of the being for a moment, as if he needs reassurance that IT’s truly dead.

 

“I think I got them all, but I can’t be sure.” Ben gestures to the eggs, which are now pulverised upon the ground, hardly reminiscent of what they were when they had arrived. Like them, Ben is coated in dark liquid, what they can only imagine is supposed to be IT’s blood. “Let’s go get Bev.”

 

Richie lingers until Bill calls him. “Richie?”

 

His friend’s head shoots up as he pushes his glasses up his nose, moving to follow the other two. They retreat in silence.

 

None of them having anything left to say anymore anyway.

 

-

 

Bev stays behind, but she can’t look at Eddie. She wants to remember the best parts of him: the little boy she’d first met, the man he’d grown into. She doesn’t want to think of him mangled and broken and desperate, but happy and idiotic and kind. Her Eddie was not the one sprawled on the ground.

 

She can hardly think straight. Everything is blurred, and she feels beyond disorientated. Bill and Richie have gone after IT, and she feels dread at the thought of losing one of them too. The possibility of IT surviving scares her even more, of letting Eddie die for nothing. 

 

Ben is with them, and she wishes he were here, with her. She sometimes thinks of how little she’s appreciated Ben’s steady warmth for her, his constant support. _January Embers_. Ben is the quiet calm, he is unshakeable, unflappable. She has bound herself to him in some way.

 

Bev mostly thinks of their childhood while she waits. She pictures them all, at the quarry, laughing and playing and just being stupid little kids. She'd been so happy then, felt so alive. She’s missed them so much. She remembers how intimidated by Stan she had used to feel, how his gaze used to feel like it burned. She’d thought he hated her for a while.

 

Then she’d heard stories from Bill about Stan angrily defending her after she had left the school, of him always asking Bill how she was, how she liked things at her new school, if she seemed happy. When she came back over summer, they’d go on bird watching trips. She thinks he liked her company because she didn’t talk all the fucking time.

 

She knew the side of him that was dry and caustic and funny, that exuded warmth and love for his friends. Eddie had been the same - she was quite sure he’d have died for any of them, and perhaps thats what he did. Eddie cared so fucking much, it killed him.

 

Eddie had been many things, and it drained Bev to think of the emphasis on the had. He was almost the glue that kept the Losers together, so brave and full of heart. They had all loved him so damn much.

 

She waits for the others with her thoughts crowding her. Dull thuds echo towards her, and she can hear Richie’s voice faintly, but it sounds hoarse and strangled. She calls out. “Hello?”

 

She hears Ben’s voice in response, and they sound close. “Bev?”

 

She stands quickly, wipes away wetness from her eyes. She needs to be strong. The men round the corner, all three covered in gore. “Is it dead?”

 

“We t-think so.”

 

Ben breathes harshly. “There were eggs. So many eggs.”

 

The man with the wide rimmed glasses is silent, still.

 

Bill speaks again, looking around at the others. “We sh-should go.”

 

Bev only nods, looks to Eddie on the ground. Richie goes to him, and Bev can barely bear to look at her two friends. “Can someone help me?”

 

Ben moves to his friend, helping him hoist Eddie up. Richie has his arm and shoulder and Ben his legs, their faces pinched from the strain of holding up his body.

 

“Audra…” Bill looks up from his wife’s form at his friends. “We c-can’t bring them b-both.”

 

Ben nods, and his voice comes out worn. “Then we’ll have to leave him here.” Ben slowly crouches to the ground again, lowering his friend as he looks to Richie.

 

“No. No, we can’t. He - he hates it here. We can’t.” Richie grips Eddie’s upper half but follows Ben movements, slipping to the floor ungracefully with the other man’s limp head in his lap. He stares down at his closed eyes, feeling the warmth slipping out of his body.

 

“Richie, we have don’t have a choice…” Ben trails off, and looks at the other man meaningfully.

 

Richie shakes his head, looking up at the others with a viciousness they don’t recognise. “Shut the fuck up. There’s _always_ a choice.”

 

Bev’s eyes are pleading as she looks at the others. “Surely we can’t - it’s Eddie.” They all know the way he felt about the sewers - it would be too cruel. To leave him here, his corpse, among the filth and the dirt and the dark.

 

“What about Audra?” She supposes Ben is only trying to be rational, but she can see the pain in Richie. To leave Eddie behind would only destroy him further, break his spirit more than it already has been.

 

Richie’s eyes are crazed, and he’s running a hand through his hair. “But he doesn’t like it here. Don’t you see that?”

 

“Richie…” Ben trails off with a meaningful look.

 

Bill puts a tentative hand on Richie’s shoulder. “It-It’s where he’s su-supposed to be.”

 

They know it’s not really true - Eddie is supposed to be buried somewhere nice, with flowers planted around him, or fucking better yet, he’s supposed to be alive, here, with them. But it’s nicer to pretend, to think that this place that terrorised them is now presided over by their own Eddie.

 

Richie presses a kiss to Eddie’s forehead, gentle and soft. Bev can see him murmuring something, and averts her eyes. It all feels so private, an intrusion on something so personal. He rises again, turns around, and nods, the go ahead for them to leave.

 

When they emerge from the sewer into the storm, she swears to herself she won’t languish in the suffering that IT has caused them, but she can’t be sure she can keep that promise.

 

-

 

Mike has no idea whats happening. He’s recovering, ever so slowly, and every second he’s in that hospital bed, his anxiety grows greater and greater. His friends are out there fighting against IT, risking everything, and here he is, lying here, doing nothing.

 

He has this terrible feeling they won’t come back. He remembers how he’d felt when they’d found out about Stan, and he dreads the thought of losing another one of the losers. Though his memories of them had faded over time, he had always felt them.

 

They had been some sort of presence out in the world, people he knew but didn’t. The losers and their shared memories were something Mike had been clinging to like a life raft in the loneliness of reality. What killed him was knowing that if they killed IT, they would all leave again.

 

Mike had gotten accustomed to being alone. His house was big, had been someone’s family home, but he had no-one to fill it with. His grandpa had died what felt like eons ago, leaving him behind to collapse in on himself. He is alone, and he always will be.

 

Mike had long felt like the outcast among them anyway. They tried to include him, he knows they did, but he didn’t go to school with them and he lived faraway. Eddie had always encouraged him to come along, forcing him out of solitude, away from the “germs” of the farm.

 

A nurse comes by to check on him, and he sits upright suddenly. After his confrontation with the other nurse mere hours before, he is wary and desperate to be released, or to at least see his friends. “Excuse me?”

 

She smiles warmly up from the papers she’s going over, the blue of her scrubs reflecting the light of the dawn filtering through the window. “Yes, hun?”

 

“Sorry to bother you, but you have any visitors come by for me yet?”

 

She frowns and shakes her head. “Not yet, sorry about that sweetheart.”

 

“And any idea when I might be sent home?”

 

She goes back to the paperwork, her voice distracted. “Hopefully soon, but we can’t be sure yet.”

 

He lies back on the bed, a wave of dizziness overtaking him again. “Oh. Well, thanks anyway.” He barely notices her leave.

 

He can practically hear the clock ticking as he stares at the cold, sanitised wall of his room. They should be back now. He knows something is wrong, something has happened that shouldn’t have. He feels like a part of him has been taken.

 

A figure looms in the shadows, distorted and blurred. Mike calls out. “Hello?”

 

The drugs have him fucked, and he knows it. The figure is coming closer and closer until he can make them out properly. “Eddie?”

 

Eddie smiles, and Mike’s vision is still swimming. “Hi, Mike.”

 

“What are you…” He pauses, thinking faster then he can actually process. “Oh, Eddie.”

 

Eddie nods with a sad sort of smile. “Yeah.”

 

“How?”

 

He shrugs his shoulders. “IT got me.”

 

“Fuck.” It’s the only thing he can think to say.

 

“Yeah.”

 

Mike grimaces. “Richie?”

 

“He seemed pretty fucked up.”

 

“Of course he was, Eddie. You - you can’t go.” Mike reaches a hand out towards Eddie, but he can’t reach him.

 

Eddie shakes his head. “It’s too late, Mike.”

 

“This isn’t real. It can’t be.” Mike feels all his memories of when they were young flashing before him, riding their bikes and seeing movies and swimming at the quarry.

 

The other man chuckles, sitting down in the chair next to Mike’s bed. “I thought that evil fucking clowns weren’t real either, but hey, Derry seems to be full of surprises.”

 

“I’ll miss you, Eddie.” He swallows. “I’m never honest enough about my feelings, but god, I’ll miss you.”

 

“It’s okay, Mike, honestly.”

 

“It’s not. And you know that Richie’s going to be a fucking mess with you gone. He loves you, you know.”

 

“I love him too. All of you. You’re the only people I’ve ever truly loved.” Mike thinks this might be their first serious conversation, Eddie’s sincerity and aloof seriousness taking him aback. They had never been that close when they were young, but always had this understanding of one another.

 

“If I’d been there -”

 

“You couldn’t have done anything. Please don’t think that way.” He shifts in the chair, leaning forward towards Mike. “Will you - Could you look out for Richie? When you get out? I trust you the most. You’ve always taken care of all of us, really.”

 

“Of course, buddy. Don’t worry about it.”

 

Eddie smiles so big, and Mike’s heart breaks a little. “Thanks, Mike.”

 

He smiles back, and then a knock at the door startles him. He jerks his head to the doorway. “Come in!”

 

When he looks back, there is nothing where “Eddie” had been. A hallucination. Which meant maybe he was wrong, everyone was fine, his mind only playing tricks on him and taking advantage of his fears. Eddie is fine, cracking jokes and puffing on his funny little inhaler.

 

He wants to believe that, but he knows. He knows when Bill appears in the door frame, his expression speaking a thousand words, when they all file through aside from one.

 

-

 

When they return to Mike’s house, Ben doesn’t quite know what to say. His hands are shaking, and everything seems to hurt. He doesn’t know what to say, what to feel. Eddie is gone. He wants to say something, anything, but he doesn’t have the words.

 

Richie locks himself in his guest room, and Ben is worried. After Stan, it makes the rest of them so anxious. They don’t know whether to get involved or to leave it - Richie had loved Eddie, and although they were all devastated, it was Richie who was hurt the most.

 

Ben is worried for Bill, too. Bill didn’t say much when they found out about Stan, but he knows he is the one most affected by his loss. Stolen glances and touches were things Ben had never missed, and even though their youth had become a haze, Ben could remember that Bill and Stan had shared them.

 

That night, Ben goes to sleep next to Beverly - she had been distraught - and he cries for the first time in years. They’ve won, IT is finally gone, but all he feels is sad. They’re free, but Stan and Eddie aren’t, all the kids IT took over the years aren’t. They are just the lucky ones, and Ben can’t bring himself to be glad.

 

He wakes up early the next morning and makes breakfast for the others. Richie doesn’t come down, but Bev puts some food outside his room and the empty plate is left there when they check later. It’s so quiet, just him and Bill and Bev, smoking and drinking coffee and lingering in their own depraved melancholy. The rain of the storm slows to a patter upon the house.

 

“I’m s-sorry.” Bill says over his cup of coffee, his voice trembling. Ben grimaces at the lingering of his stutter even all these years later.

 

Bev puts a hand over his on the table, her concern evident. “For what, Bill?”

 

“I d-d-don’t know, I g-guess, everything.” Bill has been weathered by the years. His stubble is coarse and the lines in his skin defined. He looks like the sort of man who has been beaten by his past relentlessly, and it makes Ben sad to see.

 

“Bill.” It comes out like an admonishment.

 

“No, I should have helped carry Audra… Oh my god, we fucking left him there…” She is breathing in short, shaky breaths, and Ben can feel his mouth go dry.

 

He shakes his head. “It’s not anybody’s fault. We had to bring Audra back.” The woman was still out cold, and Bill winced at the mention of her name. “Please don’t think that way.”

 

“Why n-not? I got us into th-this mess.” Ben had always worried about the blame Bill had taken upon himself, and seeing his concern come to fruition made him even more anxious.

 

“You did nothing, Bill, but your best and your bravest.” He pauses. “We do need to try and contact Myra.”

 

Bev makes a sound. “His wife? What will we tell her?”

 

Bill sighs shakily, rising and pulling on a coat. “W-we’ll have t-to lie.”

 

“Where are you going?” Bill doesn’t answer him, his mouth a tight line as he shoves his phone and keys in his pocket. “Bill?”

 

“Just-t a walk.” His friend’s tone is flat, his expression almost distant.

 

Bev stands. “Do you want me to-“

 

“I’ll b-be fine.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Can b-b-both of you st-stop worrying?” He shakes his head and disappears out the door, leaving behind an empty silence.

 

Ben leans back into his chair, watching the other man leave. Audra is upstairs, prone in the room that Bill would have shared with Stan. It must be surreal for him, the heavy weight of all his loss pressing down harder and harder, slowly killing him.

 

Mike’s coming home later that day. He had been incoherent when they first saw him, muttering about Eddie, which had disturbed them all. He had seemed to know already, to feel his loss before they told him. He wonders how he’ll cope with the empty quiet of his home when they’ve all left.

 

“Hey.” He reaches a hand across the table towards Beverly. “Talk to me, Bev.”

 

“You know, we should feel happy. We killed IT.” She takes a drag from her cigarette, the smoke spiralling into the air of Mike’s small kitchen. He can see the unsteadiness in her hand.

 

“I know.”

 

“I wish I could be.”

 

“So do I. It just doesn’t really feel worth it.” It’s the unspoken; losing Stan and Eddie and their memories, it all made victory more bitter than sweet.

 

She puts her cigarette out in the ashtray, a distinct sense of sorrow rising off of her. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

 

“But, we do have each other now. I missed you all. I missed _you_.” The softness in his own tone surprises even him. Regardless, he is glad to have these people back, the people who made his youth bearable. Especially Bev, who had been kind to him when no-one else had been, who hadn't cared about him being the new kid, or the fat kid, or the weird kid.

 

She smiles at that, tightly, but it’s still a smile. “I missed you too, Ben. Even if my memories were pretty faded.”

 

They talk some more, about both the sad and the joyful, and when Bev kisses him that night, it feels like a culmination of the years and their past and what they know to be true. It affirms everything that Ben wants to believe: that life will move on.

 

-

 

Richie doesn’t speak to the others fully for three days. He lingers in his guest bedroom at Mike’s home, and the silence is cold for the other losers. They all miss Eddie, Richie knows this, but not the way he does. He’ll never see Eddie and his fucking stupid little fanny pack again.

 

It kills him too, to think of Eds body rotting away down there, abandoned in the sewers of their shithole of a town. He knows why Ben and Bill had said to leave him, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less, doesn’t make him resent them any less. He wants to go and get him, but the others won’t let him.

 

His last moments keep replaying over and over, and Richie’s been sick twice as a result. This image of Eddie, his Eddie, with sallow cheeks and blood smeared all over him, reaching up pathetically towards him. His last sentence, the meaningful words he had to say, cruelly cut off.

 

Richie was never overly religious, but it makes him sure there is no God. That, or the motherfucker is a sado-masochist. What kind of God would bring into existence whatever the fuck IT was, would let this thing take away the people who mattered most and deserve it the least.

 

It’s enough to make him understand how Stan felt.

 

On the third day, he lets Bev in talk to him. She thrusts a packet of cigarettes into his hand and perches on the end of his bed, watching him intently. “Hi.”

 

“Hey.” He doesn’t look at her, instead going to the window and lighting a cigarette. His hands are shaking.

 

“You look like shit.” The irony isn’t lost on him looking at the bags under her own eyes, but he does appreciate her honesty.

 

“Thanks.” 

 

She nods tightly. “How are you?”

 

“How the fuck do you think?” He shuts his eyes and runs a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “Sorry.”

 

“It’s fine, Richie. The others are pretty worried though.”

 

“I just… I can’t fucking…” Richie takes a shaky breath. “I miss him so bad.”

 

“So do I.”

 

He swallows tightly. “I loved him.”

 

“We all did.” At that, he shakes his head, and he can’t meet her eyes.

 

“No, I - I _loved_ him.”

 

“Oh. Oh, Richie.” She rises and comes to him, wrapping her arms around him tightly. He wants to push her away, to fight it, but he could never resist Bevvie. It makes him think of all those times they had sat around smoking, waxing philosophical like they knew anything about anything.

 

Bev’s speaking into his chest. “I think… I think he loved you too.”

 

Richie only nods, and he lets out a whimper that cows him with his own patheticness. “I’m so fucked up, Bev.” Everything is spilling out of him. He is split at the seams, and he can’t do anything to change it.

 

“That’s okay. We’re here, Rich.”

 

“Stan’s gone too. He was one of my best friends, you know, and he fucking killed himself. They’re both dead.” He can feel tears welling up now, wetness upon his cheeks. Bev pulls away slightly so she can look at him.

 

“I know.”

 

“The worst thing is I… I guess I just want to forget him again, like we forgot before. Then everything will stop hurting so fucking bad.”

 

She is silent, and so is he. It is a terrible truth, the sort of thing he couldn’t admit to anyone but her. “If you forget, you lose him for good.” She has her hands on his face, forcing him to look at her.

 

Richie already feels like he’s lost a part of himself.

 

Bev stays with him the rest of the afternoon until early evening. She tries to coax him out of his room, tempting him with food and more cigarettes, but he’s not ready to face the others yet, even if they share in his misery. Instead, he curls up on his bed, feeling the harsh springs dig into his back. He clings to a shirt he digs out of Eddie’s luggage, and he tries his hardest to go to sleep.

 

He dreams of red that night: loose red shorts on a small boy, red letters scrawled on a cast, red blood all over someone he had loved.

 

-

 

They all leave behind the past eventually. Ben & Bev are the first to leave Derry, smiling as they wave from Ben’s car. Sometimes, they send letters to the others - first with photos of their travels, then later of their daughter. They are happy, and together they make the life they could only have dreamed of, a life of love and poetry and cohesion. They leave Derry with the hope for a future free of IT.

 

Bill, he takes longer. He and Audra stay with Mike a while, which Bill appreciates - he isn’t left alone with his thoughts for too long. Bill gets it into his head to take her on his bike in a moment of hysteria, and when it works it leaves him breathless. He decides to tell her things, the things he never could, and it feels like a weight has lifted. He leaves Derry with a wistful look - he knows that leaving means letting go.

 

Mike, he doesn’t leave Derry. He endeavours to keep the story alive, write diaries and protect the memory of their friends. It’s hard to keep their legacy’s alive when he starts to forget their names, their faces. He tries, still, but he knows one day he’ll forget completely. He doesn’t leave, because Derry is all he has left - it reminds him of being a part of something and having a purpose.

 

When Richie leaves Derry, he does with little thought but escape. He will get his wish in time and forget. His memories of Derry will slip from him slowly, and the dull pain in his heart becomes something he can’t recognise the reason for. Every so often, he’ll see a blurred face in a crowd, and he’ll feel a familiar ache for someone he knows he has lost, but can’t remember. Sometimes he'll drink to try and erase the pain. He forgets, but he never stops feeling.

 

-

 

Richie dies at sixty seven. The last thing he sees is a face that has haunted him for twenty seven years. He smiles. 


End file.
